First All-Russian Congress of Peasants’ Deputies

MAY 4–28 (MAY 17–JUNE 10), 1917

Draft Resolution on the Agrarian Question

1)Alllanded estates and privately-owned lands, as well as
         crown and church lands, etc., are to be turned over
         immediately to the people without any compensation.

2)Thepeasantry must in an organised manner, through their
         Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies, immediately take over all the
         land in their localities for the purpose of its economic
         exploitation, without however in any way prejudicing thereby
         the final establishment of land regulations by the
         Constituent Assembly or by the All-Russia Council of Soviets,
         should the people decide to vest the central power of the
         state in such a Council of Soviets.

3)Privateproperty in land must be abolished altogether, i.e.,
         all the land shall belong only to the nation as a whole, and
         its disposal shall be placed in the hands of the local
         democratic institutions.

4)Thepeasants must reject the advice of the capitalists and
         landowners and their Provisional Government to come to “an
         agreement” with the local landowners on the immediate
         disposal of the land; the disposal of all the land must be
         governed by the organised decision of the majority of the
         local peasants, and not by an agreement between the majority,
         i.e., the peasants, and the minority, and an insignificant
         minority at that, i.e., the landowners.

5)Notonly the landowners are fighting and will continue to
         fight as hard as they can against the transfer of all landed
         estates to the peasants without compensation, but also the
         capitalists, who wield great power both because of their
         money and because of their influence on the as yet
         unenlightenedmasses through the newspapers and the numerous
         officials, employees, etc., who are accustomed to the
         domination of capital. Hence, the transfer of all the landed
         estates to the peasantry without compensation cannot be
         carried through on a complete and secure basis unless the
         confidence of the peasant masses in the capitalists Is
         destroyed, unless a close alliance is established between the
         peasantry and the urban workers, and unless state power is
         taken over completely by the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’,
         Peasants’, and other Deputies. Only state power wielded by
         such Soviets and administering the state not through a
         police, or a bureaucracy, or a standing army isolated from
         the people, but through a nation-wide, universal and armed
         militia of the workers and peasants, can guarantee the
         realisation of the above-mentioned agrarian reforms, which
         are being demanded by the entire peasantry.

6)Agriculturallabourers and poor peasants, i.e., those who,
         because of the lack of sufficient land, cattle, and
         implements, earn a living partly by working for hire, must
         strive their hardest to organise themselves independently
         into separate Soviets, or into separate groups within the
         general peasants’ Soviets, in order to protect their
         interests against the rich peasants, who inevitably strive
         towards an alliance with the capitalists and landowners.

7)Asa result of the war, Russia, like all other belligerent
         and many neutral (non-belligerent) countries, is facing an
         economic debacle, disaster and famine owing to the shortage
         of workers, coal, iron, etc. The only way to save the country
         is by the workers’ and peasants’ deputies assuming control
         and management of the entire production and distribution of
         goods. It is therefore necessary to proceed immediately to
         arrange agreements between Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies and
         Soviets of Workers’ Deputies on the exchange of grain and
         other rural products for implements, footwear, clothing,
         etc., without the medium of the capitalists, who must be
         removed from the management of the factories. With the same
         purpose in view, the peasant committees must be encouraged to
         take over the livestock and implements of the landowners,
         such livestock and implements to be used in
         common. Similarly, the conversion of all large landed estates
         into model farms must be encouraged, theland to be
         cultivated collectively with the aid of the best implements
         under the ’direction of agricultural experts and in
         accordance with the decision of the local Soviets of
         Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies.